Russia historian Stephen Kotkin: Putin doesn't even have a Quisling
This is a New Yorker interview with David Remnick:
But here are some of the considerations: after three or four weeks of war, you need a strategic pause. You have to refit your armor, resupply your ammo and fuel depots, fix your planes. You have to bring in reserves. There’s always a planned pause after about three to four weeks.
If Kyiv can hold out through that pause, then potentially it could hold out for longer than that, because it can be resupplied while the Russians are being resupplied during their pause.
Moreover, the largest and most important consideration is that Russia cannot successfully occupy Ukraine. They do not have the scale of forces. They do not have the number of administrators they’d need or the coöperation of the population. They don’t even have a Quisling yet.
These are excerpts. In the full audio interview at the link, Kotkin doesn’t rate Russia-based would-be Quisling Viktor Yanukovych high at all. He calls him “unbelievably corrupt,” “a psychologically unimpressive character,” and “incompetent.”
“Could he actually have the willpower, would he even agree, to run Ukraine on behalf of Russia? And if not him, who else?”
Kotkin then adds:
Think about all those Ukrainians who would continue to resist. The Nazis came into Kyiv, in 1940. They grabbed all the luxury hotels, but days later those hotels started to blow up. They were booby-trapped. If you’re an administrator or a military officer in occupied Ukraine and you order a cup of tea, are you going to drink that cup of tea? Do you want to turn the ignition on in your car? Are you going to turn the light switch on in your office? All it takes is a handful of assassinations to unsettle the whole occupation.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin
